Remembering those lost to COVID-19: Margery McGoff was dedicated Atascadero grandmother
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Remembering those lost to COVID-19
The Tribune is working to share the stories of those lost to the coronavirus pandemic in San Luis Obispo County.
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Remembering those lost to COVID-19: Margery McGoff was dedicated Atascadero grandmother
When asked to describe their mother, the first words out of Margery McGoff’s daughters’ mouths were “a force to be reckoned with.”
“She was a very determined lady,” her daughter Lori Head told The Tribune. “Very strong.”
On July 24, McGoff died at the age of 88 from complications related to coronavirus, leaving behind two daughters and two sons, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
That big extended family was extremely important to McGoff during her life, her daughters said, noting that she was particularly involved with the lives of her grandchildren in Atascadero.
“I don’t think she ever missed a school play or the Halloween carnival,” daughter Melinda Luce said. “I don’t think she ever missed anything to do with the four grandkids who lived here.”
McGoff was born in Kansas in 1932.
McGoff’s mother brought her and her six siblings to Richmond, California, during World War II so she could work in a shipyard because of a lack of jobs in her home state.
That’s where McGoff met her husband, John, when she was 16 years old. They were married for almost 60 years, until his death in 2008.
“My father was the love of her life,” Luce said.
The couple brought their family to live in Atascadero in 1971 when John — a National Guardsman — was assigned to Camp San Luis Obispo.
At that time, McGoff decided she wanted to go back to school, so she got her GED and then put herself through Cuesta College. She later became a Realtor, and even was part of The Million Dollar Club, reserved for Realtors who made million-dollar sales.
Even with a career, McGoff loved to stay busy, Luce said. She clogged. She quilted. She did genealogy. She started a local chapter of the Red Hat Society. She went to Jazzercise classes.
When John McGoff retired in 1988, he and his wife spent the next years traveling the world — going everywhere from the Arctic Circle to Australia.
Throughout it all, Margery McGoff always reinforced in her daughters a key personality trait: strength.
“She was a good role model,” Luce said. “My mom modeled such strength and ability to continue on like no big thing.”
“She could just run the world.”
This story was originally published September 18, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
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